ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis baseball team dropped the final two games of its season opening four game-set at West Alabama on Saturday. The Tritons dropped the opener 5-4 and the nightcap 7-2.
UMSL is now 1-3 while the Tigers improve to 3-1.
Game 1 – West Alabama 5 UMSL 4
The Tritons jumped on top loading the bases with one out in the first on an error, a single and a walk.
Garrett Strenger drove in the run working a walk with the bases loaded to bring home
Jake Isaacs. UMSL had a chance for more but
Jordan Aguallo grounded into an inning ending double play.
West Alabama got a two-run single from Houston Kitterman and an RBI single from Bryce Pelkey to grab a 3-1 lead.
The Tritons tied the game in the fourth.
Braedon Stoakes tripled to center to drive in
Dane Stevenson and later in the inning Stoakes scored on
Logan McIntyre's ground out to second.
The game remained tied until the bottom of the eighth when the Tigers got a two-out run single from Bryce Newman scoring Will Wood and Albert Hernandez with the go-ahead runs.
UMSL got one of those runs back in the ninth. McIntyre led off the inning with a double to right center and was run for by
Justin Simard.
Andrew Buescher followed with a single to center to put runners on the corner with no one out. Simard scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-4.
Cooper Blythe, running for Buescher, advanced to third on
Bryce Kulinski's single to left to put runners on the corner again with one out.
The Tritons were unable to bring those runners home as a strike out and a fly out to right ended the game.
UMSL outhit UWA 11-6 and was led by Buescher with three hits while Stevenson and McIntyre had two hits each.
Garrett Brunstetter, pitching in relief of
Shane Kearbey, allowed two runs on three hits in 4.2 innings of work while striking out seven but walked four to pick up the loss.
Game 2 – West Alabama 7 UMSL 2
West Alabama took the early lead in the nightcap with a run in the first inning as Newman scored from third as part of an attempted double steal with Chase Dejean thrown out at second on the play.
The Tritons took the lead with a pair of runs in the fifth. Stevenson led off the inning with a double to right center and advanced to third on
Logan Mantz's bunt single.
Simard laid down a sacrifice and a throwing error by the pitcher allowed Stevenson to score the tying run and sent Mantz to third and Simard ended up at second. Stoakes drove in Mantz with the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly to center.
The Tigers retook the lead in their half of the fifth as they sent 11 batters to the plate scoring six runs on six hits and an error. Cade Horton had the big hit in the frame with a two-run double down the left field line.
UMSL was outhit 9-6 in the contest and was led by Stevenson with two hits.
Dustin Hagens took the loss giving up five runs on seven hits with five strikeouts against four walks in four innings pitched.
The Tritons return to the diamond on Friday (Feb. 16) when they travel to Owensboro, Ky., to take on Kentucky Wesleyan in the first of a four-game series at noon at Panther Park.
